Dei et Viri
by aadarshinah
Summary: Some things should stay lost. #12 in the Ancient!John 'verse. John/Rodney
1. Pars Una

_Dei et Viri_

An Ancient!John Story

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><p><em>Pars Una<em>

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><p>"See that? See? See the way he lights up at the mention of <em>weapons systems<em>? It's like Doctor Vogel at the mention of pastries. I swear, I think half of his thing with Atlantis is because she's got the biggest and the badest weapons systems this side of ever," Rodney points out laughingly to Zelenka, who's working with almost equally manic excitement at the console next to them.

Iohannes can only roll his eyes at this. "Atlantis and I don't have a _thing, _Rodney."

Which, of course, causes Rodney to snort as derisively as he can manage while practically high on the excitement of finding a mostly intact Alteran research base. Which is to say, not very. But he still manages to sound condescending with ease when he says, "Oh, please. If you were any more involved, you'd've been covered in more than blood when I found you in the control chair."

Zelenka chokes a bit at this comment and mutters something in his native tongue about this being more information than he ever needed to know.

One day he'll tell the Czech that Atlantis updated his translation matrix after he got back from Terra to include nineteen of the twenty-three languages spoken by the various members of the Expedition (the others of which are rarely ever used and therefore difficult for her to create matrices for), but not today. So instead he smirks at his _amator_ and says, "There's no need to be jealous."

"Did I say I was jealous?" Rodney snorts, sounding genuinely surprised by the comment. "'Lantis is going to be, though, when you tell her about what we found here."

"'Lantis doesn't really do jealousy."

"She will she finds out about this."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes again, "Just tell me how they managed to soup up the space guns."

"_Space guns_? And to think," Rodney says, looking over his laptop at Zelenka with a long-suffering sort of expression, "Stanford gave him a doctorate as part of his cover. Granted, it's only in mathematics, but still. All this talk of _space guns _makes you wonder why we bothered working so hard for ours."

"Would you rather," he asks, his patience starting to wear thin, "I called it an _arcus __adcelerato magnetibus inerrantibus s__agittariorum_?"

"No, but is it too much to ask for you to act your IQ when there aren't any of your soldiers around to offend by using words with more than two syllables?"

"Alright." Iohannes grabs Rodney's arm and tugs him across the room, to a corner where there aren't quite so many ears. "What's going on?"

"What do you mean _what's going on_? I'm just-"

"Being an ass?" he suggests.

"You're not stupid," Rodney protests, pulling his arms from Iohannes' grasp before crossing them in front of his chest. Mercifully, he keeps his voice down. "I don't know who drummed it into your head that you are, but you're not. You're brilliant. Maybe not on my level, but you're certainly up there with Radek in the grand scale of things, even if your speciality is speculative mathematics and not high-energy physics."

"Your point being?"

"My point being that I _know _you find this interesting-"

"I _said_ it was cool," he demurs, which earns him a quieting, almost plaintive look before Rodney continues-

"-and not just because it's a _cool space gun_ that can fire multiple bursts without having to wait to recharge, unlike the one on the satellite. No, you're interested in how it works and why it was abandoned and even if you knew those five people whose bodies we found here, only you won't let yourself show it because you're too busy pretending to be _John Sheppard_."

"I _am_ John Sheppard." At least, as far as the Expedition is concerned, he is. It's easier this way. It keeps the awkward questions to a minimum, and lets him forget – sometimes – that he's alone on Atlantis. Surrounded by people, yes, but completely alone because he is the last of his kind.

(Sometimes he even thinks the _Daedalus _shouldn't have rescued him from the jumper he was trying to pilot into the side of a hive ship during the Siege, and it's become increasingly more apparent to him as time wears on that he doesn't have a place in the universe. Not as Iohannes Ianidedus Licinus Pastor. He still doesn't know how he feels about that.)

"No," Rodney insists, one of his hands coming up to grip his biceps, "You're not. I've seen it. You may in fact be as much of a bad-ass as you'd like to seem, but _you_ – Iohannes, or Licinus, or whatever the hell you went by before we found you, – you are _more_ than that."

"I never said I wasn't."

"You never said you were either. Hell, I don't even know if you _like_ the name John."

_One name's as good as any _he feels like saying, but doesn't because it will accomplish nothing. "You gave it to me," he says instead.

"That's not the point."

He raises an eyebrow.

"The point," the scientist continues with a sigh, "is no one here cares if you're an Ancient or not. You don't have to pretend to be something you're not."

"Who said I was pretending?" even Iohannes can hear the defensive note in his voice.

"Fine, whatever. Do whatever you want, it's your life, but don't bite my head off if I want you to actually, God forbid, be _happy_." Rodney is already turning heel as he says this last, heading back towards Zelenka and the consoles he'd been pouring over with excitement just minutes earlier.

Iohannes stays where he is for the longest time, just thinking, before one of Rodney's newest minions approaches him. He doesn't know the young woman's name, only that she can't even be twenty-five, and that she'd taken it upon herself to see the bodies they'd found in the outpost put into body-bags and placed with dignity in the back of one of the jumpers, rather than being left to rot beneath the stormy Dorandan sky. He also doesn't know whether or not to thank her for that – its hard to forget, with the tangible proof in the hold of one of his ships, that the bodies are ten thousand plus years old and so is he, and all he wants to do some days is just forget. He doesn't even want to think about preforming the funerals they deserve, not when the anthropologists will be begging him to watch and the medical staff will be fighting him to _examine the bodies_ first.

The young woman – girl, really – grows visibly nervous as she draws closer. "I-" she begins, ducking her head. "All of the bodies," she says, holding out her hand, in which five pendants are gathered, their silver chains dangling loosely around her fingers, "were wearing these. We thought they might be dog tags. Don't worry," she adds hastily, "we marked which came from which. We just thought..." She ducks her head again, checks flushing, and walks away before she finishes her thought.

Iohannes doesn't have to do more than glance to see that she's right – the small pendants, of much the same design as the _portae_, served much the same purpose, for those rare chances in the War that they were able to recover the bodies of their dead. He'd left his own behind in the auxiliary control room after it had been hit and now wears tags of a different style in their place, with a different name.

Unable to help himself, he glances at the names inscribed on both sides of the circular discs:

_Alitia Agnis Perita_, _Ollaferas Torcus Peritus_, _Aegidius Timal Magister,_ and _Onoria __Preco __Discipula_ are the first four – people he'd known only vaguely, as colleagues of Father's, all of whom he remembered as having died while Iohannes was stationed at Tirianus, though he doesn't recall anything about their deaths as having been part of a research accident. That's not surprising, though. Dozens had died while he'd been at Tirianus; he doesn't remember the specifics for very many of them.

But the last, the last he'd known very well, and he remembers all too clearly how he'd died.

"Rodney?" he calls when when he can breathe again. "Zelenka? Pack it in."

"What?" one of them asks, and, for the life of him, he can't tell who. Not now.

"Pack it in. We're heading back. Now."

"But-"

"This is Project Arcturus," Iohannes says, and swallows around all the words that wand to follow.

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><p><strong>an:** _dei et viri_ translates to _gods and men_. More will follow.


	2. Pars Dua

_Dei et Viri_

An Ancient!John Story

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><p><em>Pars Dua<em>

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><p>"It was called Project Arcturus," he repeats when they're in Elizabeta's office, and he's sitting on her couch and decidedly <em>not<em> looking at anyone in the room. He's flipping the last pendant over and over his fingers with somewhat embarrassing dedication but, for the life of him, Iohannes can't make himself stop. To do so would allow him to see the name inscribed there, and that's not something he can dwell on at the moment. "Don't ask me for the details, I don't know them."

"According to what we've been able to translate so far, it's ultimate goal was to render ZedPMs obsolete." Despite the way he's hovering next to Iohannes, clearly concerned, Rodney manages to sound excited about this.

Colonel Caldwell asks about the project. He's scheduled to leave the day after tomorrow, but he's been fishing for reasons to stick around longer, and this information just might do it. (Iohannes doesn't mind, not really, but for all he appreciates the man's skills, there's something gruff about the man that puts him on edge. He _wants_ to like Caldwell, rather desperately in fact, but there's just something _off_ about the man that he can't put his finger on. Perhaps it's that he's Terran, and he's expecting Alteran things of the closest thing he has to a superior officer in this galaxy.)

"Well," Rodney tries to explain, "a Zero Point Module is an artificial region of subspace time – a miniature universe in a bottle, if you will. It extracts vacuum energy from this region of subspace until it reaches maximum entropy. Our research shows that the Ancients may have had some way of recharging them, but for the most part found it easier to simply make new ones. Rather like alkaline batteries, actually."

Zelenka takes up the thread from there, continuing, "Project Arcturus' goal was to extract vacuum energy from our _own_ space-time, making it potentially as powerful as the scope of the universe itself."

"It strikes me as something the Ancients would have tried first, even before ZPMs."

"We did," Iohannes says, prying his eyes away from the pendant. He's staring a hole in the floor now, but it's better than staring at the name emblazoned on the silver disk and all it represents, though he'd thought he'd long since come to terms with Forcul's death, "_Potentiae_ were easier."

"Yes, well, extracting zero point energy from our own universe is definitely trickier."

"And by _trickier_ he means it's hard to find a way to do without making the universe uninhabitable. Hey," he adds, mildly affronted when they all turn and look at him, complete and utter surprise present on all of their faces (well, except Rodney, who just looks smug), "I _am_ Alteran. I do in fact know what I'm talking about."

At their continued looks he clarifies: "Sometimes. And, besides, Project Arcturus was Father's biggest argument with the Council, before the Exodus. His letters for a while were full of nothing but complaints about it – thought it was just a pipe dream, and that Forcul and the Council should be focused on other ways of ending the war."

Silence greets this, and, when he looks up again, the confusion has spread to Rodney as well. "And of course that means nothing to you." He sighs and holds up the pendant in his hands. "Forcul was Andeo Mael Forcul Magister. He was the head of Project Arcturus – which, as you can see, was a total failure."

Rodney frowns at this, like he wants to ask more, but still says, "Failure, yes. Total, no. It could've turned the tide of war, had it worked."

"Yes. And it didn't."

"The Dorandans still managed to inflict massive damage on the attacking Wraith fleet before they were destroyed."

"I'm not saying that they didn't put up a hell of a fight, but the war was like that: We'd destroy ten, twenty hives at a time, but more would keep on coming. Our technology was superior in every way, we just didn't have the manpower they did."

"So what went wrong?" Elizabeta asks.

Iohannes shrugs. He'd never asked Father for the details. There was a large part of him that suspected that no one ever knew – that someone had piloted a jumper to Doranda, seen the wreckage, and assumed the worst without searching for clues. Certainly, if any Alteran had landed at the outpost after the accident, he or she would have taken the bodies away. His people hadn't been religious for longer than Atlantis had been around, but they still respected their dead, particularly when so few in those last years left corpses behind for others to bury.

Zelenka answers for him, "The logs indicate there was a major malfunction, forcing the Ancients in the bunker to shut everything down, including the weapon. And then, as Colonel Sheppard said, the Wraith sent more ships, and the planet was completely decimated in the attack."

"So, if the malfunction hadn't occurred, the Ancients could have saved the planet?"

"Definitely."

"_Possibly_," Iohannes corrects. "Don't sugar-coat this, Rodney. We tried a lot of things," Father's Attero Device, for one, and bringing Tirianus to Lantea for another. They'd a thousand other insane plans, but one by one they all failed, until the Council saw no alternative but to run back to Avalon, tails between their legs, and consign Atlantis to the deepest depths, alone and forgotten like a thousand other devices that had outlived their need. "You'll notice that none of them actually worked."

"This Forcul of yours was obviously rushed into testing before his team had perfected a means of effectively controlling the power output. If they'd had more time, it's quite likely history would have played out differently on that planet – possibly in this galaxy. But, as John said, they were desperate, and loosing a war they'd already been fighting for a hundred years." _(Ninety-seven_, he doesn't correct. It'd been ninety-seven at that point, and the Exodus wouldn't occur for another nine years.) "More importantly, they were like... this close."

"And you believe you can finish their work?"

"I do."

"_We_ do," Zelenka insists.

"What about you, John?" Elizabeta asks when he doesn't offer ready agreement.. "What do you think?"

"I-" he starts, his eyes going back to the pendant in his hand. Quickly, he closes his fingers around the pendant, the smooth edges of the disk digging into his skin, and ducks his head further, so he doesn't have to look at anyone, doesn't have to see them seeing how deeply this news, ten millennia and ten years old, is effecting him.

Swallowing, he tries again, this time managing to get out, "If it can be done, they're the ones who can do it," before quickly standing and leaving Elizabeta's office as fast as he can without making it look like he's running away any more than he already is.

He can't take this today, he really can't. He's been back on Atlantis for almost two months now, but the memory of Terra, with all of it's _descendants_, lingers, reminding Iohannes of the thoughts he had when he was flying his nuke-filled jumper into the side of a hive ship. It's one thing to realize that the Terrans are shaping the face of the universe when he thinks he's about to die; it's another entirely to live through that realization and know that there's no place for him left in the universe.

That's not true, Atlantis tells him as he's stepping into the _vectura_ and letting it take him to as far a corner of the city as possible, away from all the people and the noise and the whispers that follow him wherever he goes. Your place is with me, _pastor_, and with Moreducus.

Then maybe neither of us has a place left, he answers her after a moment, ignoring the last bit entirely.

The city's taken him to the north pier, one which the Terrans have largely ignored in favour of the west, which holds the larger labs, and the south-east, from which they've eked out most their living space. He's not near the axillary control room at all, but Iohannes' feet start taking him there before he even realizes what he's doing.

Atlantis realizes soon enough, and begins blocking access to the paths he needs to take. Just because our reasons for being may change doesn't change the fact that we still _are_. He knows all the secret passages, though, and she can't block them all.

What if they don't? I've been fighting the Wraith since before I was born, it seems. Everyone I ever knew had spent their whole lives fighting the Wraith, until the Terrans arrived. What if that's the only reason I've managed to stick around as long as I have? To fight the Wraith – and watch the Terrans make the same mistakes we did, again and again?

You know that's not true.

Isn't it? Iohannes glares at the door in front of him, which refuses to open. Open this door, 'Lantis.

She knows as well as he where that door will take him, to the axillary control room that had begun his journey ten thousand years into the future, and, knowing this, redoubles her efforts to keep him from entering. What good will it do?

None at all, probably, but, I need to see if they're still there. He'd assumed the _servola_ had taken care of the bodies, before the others had taken the _servola _offline, – he knows Nicolaa died there that last day, and probably many of the others as well when their tower was hit – but, now, can't be sure. He can't ask Atlantis either, because the city would only tell him what he wants to hear _for his own mental health_, and he can't very well leave them to rot. It wouldn't be right.

Why?

Iohannes bangs his fist against the still-closed doors. He _could_ bypass the locking mechanism with ease, but that's not how his relationship with the city works. To do so would be to violate something between them. He'd tried to explain it to Rodney once, saying that it was the difference between sex and rape, and thought maybe he'd understood, but none of the other Expedition members could. Not without knowing Atlantis like he does. Not without hearing her ever-changing song.

He raises his hands to the doors again, but finds his fists have unclenched all on their own. Iohannes settles his palms against the door instead, pleading, Because, because it's the only argument he has. Because he needs to know how many he left behind that day. Because Nicolaa was the only friend he ever truly had before Rodney and Teyla and Elizabeta and Carson. Because 'Lantis deserved better than to have mouldering bodies inside her walls.

You shouldn't be alone right now, she tells him after a long pause.

Iohannes turns around, pressing his back against the door instead. I'm not alone. I've got you, or so you keep telling me.

There are some things, _pastor_, that you need organic companionship for.

He snorts, thinking of Rodney's earlier comment, but it turns into a groan of it's own accord, and Iohannes finds himself sliding down the length of the door, until he's half-sitting, half-sprawled on the floor in front of it. Rodney's busy.

Moreducus isn't the only one who cares for you, _pastor_.

Don't tell him that, Iohannes says, allowing a false note of cheer to colour his words. He's still hearing about Chaya, and all he ever did was _smile_ at her before he realized she was a s_chismatica__. _

You're being deliberately dense.

He's fairly certain she'd never used that phrase before she heard Rodney say it, and the thought forces him to stifle another groan. I just want to be alone for a while, 'Lantis.

__Pastor___- _

I love you, __carissima___, _I really do, but, please, not now.

'Lantis pouts at this, but lowers the lights in the hall, which Iohannes takes for grudging agreement_._

* * *

><p>He doesn't know how long he's sat there in the semi-dark when Carson arrives, looking somewhat bewildered and carrying one of his bags of emergency medical supplies. "What's this then?" the doctor asks when he's close enough, going onto his knees beside him and checking Iohannes over quickly for injuries.<p>

"I'm fine," he protests, drawing his legs in. After a moment, he folds his arms atop them and rests his chin upon them.

"You don't look it, lad."

"I'm older than you. You're my nephew. _I_ should be calling _you_ lad."

"Ah," Carson says knowingly, snapping his bag closed and leaning back so he can sit on the floor properly. "It's one of _those_ moods."

"I don't have _moods_," he says testily.

Carson laughs, small and sad like this comment should really be a lot funnier than it is. "That you do, lad. They're just a lot quieter than most other people's. My dear mother, why, you wouldn't want to be within five miles when she's in a strop, and my sisters are worse."

"Hmm."

"I've five of them, you know," Carson continues, as if he's just appeared in the middle of this otherwise deserted hall to talk to Iohannes about it, "and two brothers. I was never really close with my brothers – they took after my Da, who was a warrant officer in the British Army. Ben – he was the oldest – got himself killed in the Bosnian War, when I was still in med school. Pete died about three years ago, in Afghanistan. He was the youngest of us lot, so you imagine how my mother felt when I told her I was going to work for the United States military. She thought, being a doctor, I'd never end up somewhere where there was a distinct possibility I'd be getting shot at on a regular basis..."

They just sit there for a long time, Carson talking causally about his sisters and their children and how, now that his mother could email him on a fairly regular basis, she'd started bothering him about why he didn't hadn't settled down yet. By the time he gets to, "...so I'm tempted to tell her about Laura, just so she eases up on that front for awhile," Iohannes is feels rather less miserable, thank you very much, and is able to ask-

"So how _are_ things with Lieutenant Cadman?"

-which causes the doctor to blush, if only a little. "Good, I think. Not quite to the point of writing home about yet, but good."

"Good for you."

He means it too. He'll never admit it out lout, but he likes seeing these Terrans doing normal things, like starting relationships. It makes Atlantis seem more like a bustling city than a besieged garrison, even if it _does_ have her pestering him about when the Terrans will start having children. Atlantis misses children more deeply than is probably decent for someone who was built rather than born.

"What about you and Rodney? How's that working out – or can't I ask about that?"

Iohannes shrugs. Things between him and Rodney just _are, _and he's yet to find any words to describe _what_ or _why_ or _how. _

"Ah. So the email I got from the city wasn't because you two are fighting then?"

Bewildered, "Of course not. Well, I think he's peeved I dragged him away from the outpost so soon, but nothing serious." And then, as the full force of Carson's words hits him, "And what do you mean the city _emailed_ you? 'Lantis," he looks upward, at the still-darkened ceiling, "what did you do?"

We told you, she responds, you shouldn't be alone right now.

"_Pedicaris._"

She offers no further explanation, except to flash the lights at his _unnecessary vulgarity_.

"I'll show you unnecessary vulgarity," he mutters under his breath. He loves Atlantis, he really does, but her insistence on minding his _mental health_ is going to be the death of one of them, and, when playing the waiting game, the odds are on the one of them that _isn't_ organic, even if he's managed to spend ten thousand odd years in stasis without hardly ageing a day.

"Do I want to know?" Carson asks, clearly concerned – though, Iohannes must say, it seems more about the city than his _mental health_, which is what seems to worry most people when he talks aloud to Atlantis. It's why Carson's his favourite nephew.

Still, "She thinks I'm being unreasonable," comes out a barely audible accusation, directed more at the floor than the person sitting beside him.

"About?"

Iohannes sighs and plucks at the laces of his vambrace. "The usual." When Carson doesn't fill the silence that follows with more comfortable chatter about his family back in Scotland, he continues, forcing casualness into his voice, "I used to work in the room behind me." Every day for seven years he'd reported here and helped to plan the city's defensive strategy, until a lucky hit by a downed Wraith dart as the others were leaving put an end to that. "It's where I was right before the Exodus."

"Where you got cut up by all that glass," Carson reasons, remembering how they'd found him, semi-lucid and bleeding to death in the the _cathedra_.

"I just want to know how many died there."

"Oh, John. No one should ever have to find their friends' bodies. Especially not alone."

"The universe doesn't work by _should_s."

"Aye, that's true. But I'm here now."

That's true too, and so they get wordlessly to their feet, preparing to plead with Atlantis again to let them inside.

They're still dusting the debris from their knees when the door to the auxiliary control room opens of it's own accord.

Iohannes isn't even facing the right way and can't see the chaos that is surely inside, but he can hear the _hiss _of an airtight seal being broken as the door opens; feel the small gust sucking oxygen into the room behind, and that's all he really needs to know to know there are bodies inside. Bodies kept preserved in vacuum for over ten thousand years. Bodies of people he once knew so very well.

He closes his eyes and sinks back to the floor, only distantly able to hear Carson radioing for a medical team to report with body-bags to their location.

* * *

><p><strong>an**: A s_chismatica _is an Ancient who believes he or she is a god, but is not on Ori.


	3. Pars Tria

_Dei et Viri_

An Ancient!John Story

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><p><em>Pars Tria<em>

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><p>They're at breakfast the morning after they discover the Arcturus Project – Iohannes and his team, Elizabeta, and Carson – when Elizabeta asks, "When are you planning on holding the funerals?"<p>

Iohannes blinks at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, his spoon wavering halfway to his mouth before it _clicks_ and he can say, "Oh, I did that last night. Why?"

There is the sound of silverware hitting multiple trays around him – well, not Rodney's, because Rodney knew this full well and, while mildly concerned about his _mental health_ afterwards, had seen no reason to delay either; and not Ronan's, because, by all the deities the descendants had ever created, that man could _eat_, and not Teyla's either, because she just didn't do that kind of thing, but Elizabeta and Carson's definitely clattered to the table. "Why did you do that?"

Confused, he sets down his own spoon and asks, "Why not?"

"Because," she says patiently, "these things shouldn't be rushed, and you've twelve of them. Two of which are for people very dear to you."

He's not told the _praefecta_ about Nicolaa or Forcul. Oh, he might've mentioned their names in passing, but the only one he's admitted the deeper connections to has been Rodney, whom Iohannes turns to glare at after she says this.

Teyla doesn't seem to realize his unhappiness with this current line of questioning and asks, "What is this?" in a way that can't be ignored. As much as he's found it easier to try to keep things separate – everything that happened before the Exodus being Before and everything that has occurred since the Expedition arrived as Now, and never shall the two meet, - one simply doesn't _ignore_ Teyla Emmagan. At least, not if one wants to remain capable of walking unassisted after one's next sparing session.

"The head researcher for the Arcturus Project was John's stepfather, more or less, and the red-head from the North Pier was like the Ancient version of you or something," Rodney tries to explain for him-

-which turns Iohannes' annoyed glare into a slap upside the head before he corrects, rather against his will, "Father and Forcul never married. Never stayed together for more than a few months at a time either, but never stayed apart for much longer than that either. And even when they weren't together romantically, they still worked together, albeit with slightly more shouting." They brought out the worst in each other, Father and Forcul. Which was a shame, because, truly, they were probably the only people who ever stood a chance of making each other happy. "I'd call him less of a stepfather and more of an, oh, I dunno, honorary uncle."

"And the other one? This Nicolaa?" Teyla prompts.

"Nicolaa de Luera Pastor. She was..." he stirs what remains of his cereal intently, trying to find the words. "If I'd loved her any less, I probably _would_ have married her."

There's a long silence following this, during which Iohannes stares resolutely at his bowl until Elizabeta finally breaks the quiet, saying, "Which is exactly why I thought you'd want to take some time off to handle the arrangements."

"Alteran funerals are simple," he says, coming across rather more harshly than he intends, unable to take the pity in her eyes. He can handle having everyone he ever knew dead or as good as, he really can, just so long as they stop asking him about how it makes him _feel_. "Someone dies, you take their body to the crematorium, and then you meditate for a bit. The end."

"_Did_ you meditate?"

"Fuck no. I gave that sort of thing up years ago."

"Maybe you should."

Snorting, "That stopped working when I was five."

"You're _still_ five," Rodney mutters darkly, still rubbing the back of his head.

"What's that say about you then?"

Rodney rolls his eyes.

Elizabeta pierces her lips. "Gentlemen, if you would?"

"Yes, yes," Rodney says impatiently, "You're going to dial the SGC and inform them of Project Arcturus, Carson's going to work on his de-Wraith-ing drug, Teyla's going to the mainland, Ronan's going to do whatever it is he does when we're not off on missions, and we're on call if the galaxy needs saving at some point during the day. We got it."

"Rodney!" she says, vaguely scandalized by his flippancy, and Iohannes doesn't know if it was his plan all along or it was just Rodney being Rodney, but it _does _allow him to slip away from the table unnoticed, so he decides to give him the benefit of the doubt on it.

* * *

><p>He's supposed to be doing all sorts of things today – finishing up paperwork for those Expedition members heading back on the <em>Daedalus;<em> doing some mission planning with Lorne; going on rounds, – but Iohannes can't bring himself to concentrate. He just stares at the computer they've given him, the words he needs to write _there_ but not making their way to the page because he unfortunately has no mental up-link with the Terran technology, and eventually gives it up as lost.

It's supposed to get easier, he whinges to a sympathetic Atlantis at one point, when he's wandering her halls because it's either that or do math proofs, and he really doesn't feel up to another _think of the Fields Medals_ debacle so soon after the last. It's been a year-and-a-half since he woke up to discover he was the last Alteran in existence. It's not suppose to hurt this much this long after, not when he'd disliked the others so much. In his own, personal timeline, Forcul had been dead for over ten years, and he'd known Nicolaa had died in the auxiliary control room the moment the dust had settled there. He should be over it. He's _suppose_ to be over it by now.

The universe, for all your science, rarely works the way it's _suppose_ to.

What? he asks, his feet taking him by their own accord towards the room he and Rodney use for their movie nights, which only they two (and possibly Carson) know about. It's quiet, comfortable, and far away from anyone who might want to ask him about last night's mass funeral. Though, apparently, not far enough away from those wanting to make him take up meditation. You're saying _spirituality_ is the answer?

The distaste is more than evident when the city answers, No. We're saying that, for all the achievements of the Alteran people, there are still things we don't understand.

And you think meditation is the solution? You know how I feel about Ascension.

Who said anything about Ascension? You're a last-generation product of almost seventy million years of a race which considered meditation almost as important as breathing. Perhaps it's evolved into some sort of biological imperative, one that was never discovered because you're one of the few in all that time which refused to do so.

Iohannes can feel himself pouting at this, and considers saying something along the lines of _I prefer it when you act like a hyperactive child, _but doesn't, 'cause 'Lantis wouldn't understand, and accuses instead, You've been emailing Carson again, haven't you?

_He_, she says defensively, emailed _us_.

"It's a conspiracy," he says mostly to himself, but folds himself into position in the far corner anyway, and, willing to try anything at this point, tries to meditate.

* * *

><p>His meditation is... uncomfortable. It's filled with the same dark, impenetrable silence from his dreams, interspersed with bits of knowledge coming to the surface he cannot possibly know, including:<p>

Now that the Replicator threat is gone, the Asgard are concentrating their efforts on solving the problem they're having with genetic degradation from their millennia of cloning. They're doing their best to keep it secret from their allies, the Terrans, but a few of their most-cloned members are starting to fall victim to spontaneous _e__xempli__offensio. _Unless they can find a solution soon, their estimates predict the entire Asgard race will be dead in thirteen point seven Terran years.

A handful of Genii, disgruntled by his aggressive policies, are planning a revolt against Cowen. Their leader is Ladon Radim, who had taken part in their brief occupation of Atlantis, but other than that he seems a decent man. He's a moderate, and one of those rare folks driven into politics out of desire to serve his people rather than see them serve him. Should his coup succeed, the Expedition might find itself with a new ally. Or, at least, with one less enemy at their gates.

An Ascended Alteran calling herself Oma Desala is waging eternal battle against a partially-Ascended goa'uld called Anubis. It's caused quite a stir amongst the Others, who are torn between condemning her for this (and potentially returning her to mortal form) and concern for what Anubis might attempt to do in retribution if they did. Their combined strength far outweighed a single goa'uld's, but they were also far more reluctant to use it. And the universe knew no wrath like a scorned goa'uld.

All and all, it's quite disturbing, especially the part where it's rather like him _remembering _things he'd never known in the first place rather than learning them for the first time, and, as soon as the meditation has gone on long enough for Iohannes to be able to claim he's made a valiant attempt and he'll never do it again, thank you very much, he stops and goes looking for Rodney.

His _amator _isn't hard to find. He's in the largest of the shared labs with about half of the Expedition's scientists, engineers, and computer programmers. "Hey," he says when he's close enough to be heard in the din.

"What's up?" Rodney asks, uncapping a magic marker and, balancing a tablet in his other hand, beginning to transcribe equations onto the nearest whiteboard. It's a practised motion, but still somewhat awkward, and so Iohannes rescues the poor tablet from him before it has a chance to tumble to the floor, and holds it for him.

"You think," he asks, shifting as he leans against the whiteboard so the metal tray isn't digging so badly into his hip, "it will go over badly if I shoot the next person who tells me I should meditate?"

One of the new scientists, who's working at a computer nearby, makes a choking noise at this. They both ignore it, Rodney asking over the tail end, "Weren't you the one that said murder was an overrated problem solving technique?"

"I didn't say I'd be shooting to kill."

"It'd be less paperwork."

"Which one?"

"Killing. You've never head to file a health insurance claim before. Yet another reason why you should've chosen Canada over the States."

It's only because Rodney's fond of expounding upon the superiority of all things Canadian that Iohannes even has the slightest idea of what he's on about now. "Yeah, but their uniforms weren't as cool," he quips back, and turns the tablet around briefly to glance ahead at the equation's Rodney's transcribing. He thinks it has something to do with some sort of containment field.

Glancing down at his own uniform, "Yeah, 'cause that really matters here."

"You never know."

"So, why are you considering this shooting spree anyway?"

"Meditation sucks."

Rodney snorts.

"Well, it does."

"I'm sure."

With a frown, "No, I've been _remembering_ things again."

Rodney caps his magic marker and turns towards him, his maths momentarily forgotten. "_Ascended_ remembering?"

"Yeah."

"What kind of things?"

Iohannes tells him. The big stuff, at least. The tiny things he leaves out, because no one really needs to know about Elizabeta's (now ex-)fiancé cheating on her, or, well, that's the only one he can really think of, but still. No one needs to know that. Not even Elizabeta.

"That's... oddly specific."

"It's annoying, that's what. I was only Ascended for three minutes," (Rodney winces at this, and something inside Iohannes clenches as well. He'd prefer to forget that little fact about himself if at all possible). "Why the others should kick you back down and let you keep memories like that? It seems an awful lot like interference. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than glad you came back in one piece, but this extra bit? It's not normal."

"Thanks," he says dryly.

"Not you-normal," Rodney corrects, giving him his best _you can't possibly be this stupid_ look, and turns back to the whiteboard. "So, you think this means the others are trying to help us fight the Wraith?"

With a snort, "Hardly. Non-interference was the closest thing those that chose to Ascend ever had to a religion."

"Well, there have to be some who felt otherwise – after all," he says with a trace of bitterness, "you managed to Ascend, and you've been doing an awful lot of interfering."

"Maybe." He doubts it though. Stubbornness, he liked to think, had been encoded into the Alteran genome right along with the ability to use their technology. It certainly would explain Carson and General O'Neill. (It could explain Rodney too, since Doctor Beckett's gene therapy activates latent genes in the subject rather, or so he's been told, than introduce entirely new ones. But Iohannes prefers not to think about that, and only allows himself to consider himself related to those who come by their gene naturally.)

"They've had ten thousand years worth of front row access to everything that the Wraith have done. I'm willing to bet that's had to make _some_ of them change their minds."

"Probably not, though."

"Well, how else do you explain it?"

"I don't. And I don't want to."

"That's unusually narrow-minded of you," he accuses.

"You don't know the others like I do," Iohannes says, setting down the tablet he's been holding. "Nothing they ever do comes without a price. Believe me, if it _is _someone or someones trying to help us to stop the Wraith, then they're going to want something from us. Something difficult. Something that they can't do in their present state, not without being sent back." Selfish bastards. Like this plane of existence is so bad.

"We're going to need to come up with a name for that, it's starting to happen so often. You, Doctor Jackson..." Rodney muses, "How do you feel about Descension?"

Wrinkling his nose in disgust, "I think you should stick to what you're good at leave the naming of things to other people." Iohannes picks up the tablet again and glances more thoroughly at the equations on the screen. "You better get working on this. Forcul and his team spent almost three years working on Arcturus before the accident, and we're not going to have anywhere near the that amount of time before the Wraith realize we're still here."

"Then stop distracting me and help."

* * *

><p>It takes four weeks to go through all the coding, find the problems, and correct them. They're fairly innocuous, the mistakes – a positive integer when there should've been a negative, a misplaced decimal or two – but, altogether, it's enough to have caused the catastrophic failure that cost Forcul, his team, and (eventually) the Dorandans their lives. It's a sign of how overworked, how desperate they'd been back then, and Project Arcturus had been at a time when Tirianus still stood and they'd a good twenty <em>lintres<em> between them.

They test the weapon on the first of the Terran month _December_, which roughly coincides with the start of the wet season on Lantea. It's not quite raining when their jumpers leave Atlantis, just a grey sort of drizzly haze that reminds Sergeant Major Stevens, who's from a place on Terra called the _Pacific Northwest_, of home.

It is raining properly, however, when they return, once more with body bags. Well, only one this time, but that's still one too many.

"There was a massive power surge that caused the containment field to expand asymmetrically towards the access tube where Collins was working. That's all we really know at the moment," Rodney explains once the senior staff is gathered around the conference table some hours later. Carson's spent most the time examining Doctor Collins' body. The results are similar to what he found with the bodies of Forcul and his team – acute radiation poisoning, of a type and a sort even Iohannes doesn't have a name for.

"It will," Zelenka continues, "take time to analyse all the data from the accident. But, off-hand, it does not look promising."

Elizabeta's sitting at the head of the table, sombre and stone-faced, and hasn't said anything for several minutes before she asks, "How so?"

"I don't know," Rodney says with a difficulty that would be more amusing if the situation weren't so grim. In terms of physics, it shouldn't have happened. And, if that's the case, we can analyse the data all we like, but we'll never know for sure until we go back to Doranda and try again."

Iohannes, too, has been silent for most the meeting, but at this he can't keep quiet. "You can't be serious."

"You've said it yourself, Colonel: the Wraith are going to see through our rouse sooner rather than later, and Project Arcturus represents the only chance we have at the moment of stopping them forever."

"But at what cost? Collins is dead-"

"And I am responsible for his death, yes. I am painfully aware of that. But we have a responsibility to understand what happened and learn from it."

"What we've _learned_," Iohannes says sharply, "is that the best minds of two different races couldn't get this thing to work."

"We've only been working on this a month-"

"Yes, and my people worked on it for _three years_."

"And it took us _four_ years to develop the A-bomb, and _sixty-six_ to figure out how the Stargates work."

"We just don't have that kind of time." Privately, Iohannes gives it another twelve months – on the outside – before the Wraith discovered Atlantis stills stood. In all actuality, it's probably closer to half that, and that is if they are really, truly, extraordinarily careful.

"Contrary to popular belief," the scientist says testily, "I can't just conjure up major scientific developments out of thin air, no matter how hard you try to goad me."

"What time we _do_ have, Rodney, should be put to use trying to make the weapons we _know_ work operational." Which means finding more ZPMs, to power the city's defences, which means more missions. And why, of all the things he could have remembered from his brief time Ascended, he couldn't remember _that_, Iohannes doesn't know.

"You really think the military's gonna let this go that easily?"

"You saw what the Wraith did to the Dorandans. If we can't get the weapon operational quickly, odds are that the Wraith will simply repeat the process with us before we finish it. And, frankly, I didn't spent ten thousand years in stasis to die that way."

"I agree," Elizabeta says at last, looking between them with concern evident on her face. "You can run all the simulations you want, but until I have definitive proof that it'll work, I'm not letting anyone back there."

"That's what I'm trying to say," Rodney tries one last time. "Everything we had said that this trial should have worked. There's _absolutely no reason_ why it shouldn't have."

It doesn't work. "Then you better hope there's an explanation in your data, because that's my final answer."

* * *

><p>It takes almost a fortnight for Rodney to find an answer, banging on his door late at night two days after the <em>Daedalus<em> returns from Terra with the news that the SGC is very interested in getting the weapon operational. Not primarily to fight the Wraith, as one might think, but the Ori.

The Ori, who are the _h__aeretici_ his ancestors had travelled to Avalon to escape sixty-five million years ago.

And they, not the Wraith, are why he agrees to convince Elizabeta to let them try again.

* * *

><p>"He says the problem's in the automatic containment field. If we adjust the field strength manually, Rodney thinks that should solve the problem."<p>

Elizabeta frowns and leans forward, propping an elbow on her desk. "I'm sensing a _but_ here."

"But the field changes so rapidly, the only thing that can keep up with it _is_ a computer."

"So how does he propose to solve the problem?" Caldwell asks.

"We impregnate the computers at the Dorandan outpost with my nanoids. It should give us the best of both worlds when we're running the test."

Colonel Caldwell has always been more sceptical of his abilities than anyone on Atlantis, but he and the SGC really want the weapon, and so he asks, "And this will work?"

"I don't see why not. Rodney'll have to give me a crash-course in the containment of subatomic particles, but this sort of thing is what it means to be a _pastor_." He frowns at their disbelieving expressions. "Look, when I what exactly do you think happens when I sit in the _cathedra_? Atlantis tracks the targets, fires the weapons, but _I'm_ the one who chooses the targets, who does the manoeuvres. Organic and machine in perfect harmony. Well," he muses, glancing upward, "maybe not _perfect,_ but at least the outpost isn't likely to have Atlantis' personality issues."

"Personality issues?" Caldwell repeats as Elizabeta asks-

"And you can guarantee the same problem won't happen again?"

"No one can do that. But Rodney's confident it won't."

"Confidence is not something that Doctor McKay lacks."

At which point Caldwell jumps surprisingly to his defence, "With good reason! If anyone can do this..."

"The _Ancients_ could not do this. And that's what it keeps coming back to for me."

"Isn't it possible that you've placed the Ancients on such a high pedestal that you can't even consider the possibility that _they_ may be wrong?"

"The Colonel has a point," Iohannes agrees. "We weren't perfect, Elizabeta. Far from it. You know what we did after Project Arcturus failed? We tried to bring Tirianus half-way across the galaxy, to combine our strength. It was a massive battle, to which we committed all our forces. We even got what descendants with space-faring capabilities remained to commit all their forces as well – and used them as cannon fodder." The Council had fought his plan every step of the way, but, when they finally gave into it, they did so fully intending to sacrifice their descendants if it meant saving themselves. Iohannes hadn't learned as much until later, but it destroyed whatever faith he'd still had in his people at that point.

Elizabeta is pale after this, and it pains him to do this to her, but there's something unbearably naive about her and the way she views the world that needs to be rectified. It's one thing to believe there's good in everyone – she might even be right about that, however little Iohannes might believe it – but it's another entirely to blindly believe his people were the be all and end all of the universe. That's practically _haeresis_.

"And after that?" he continues, "Father built an endgame machine that could've ended the Wraith War – genuinely, truly ended it. He called it the Attero Device, and it disrupted the subspace frequencies that the Wrath hives use, so that when they tried to enter a hyperspace window their ships would be torn to pieces. What _lintres_ remained would be able to pick off the stragglers one by one... The only problem with it was that it caused the _portae_ to explode. But that was no problem for us – _we_ could compensate – and the Council wanted to use it, nevermind how many descendants it would destroy. Luckily Father, at least, had a conscious, because he took the device offline and dismantled it before too many had died.

"I'm not saying that most of us didn't genuinely _like_ our descendants. But we were always a cowardly race," he says, distaste bleeding through. "We ran from what problems we could not see an easy solution to, be it by crossing half the universe to escape our enemies or by Ascending to a plane of existence where they no longer mattered. For most of us, our descendants were little better than animals, and, if given the choice between sacrificing them or sacrificing ourselves, would have chosen them every time.

"And _those_ are the kind of people you think are so infallible."

Elizabeta's still pale when she starts speaking, but her cheeks go red as she goes on, "I get your point, Colonel! You think I don't know everything Arcturus could mean for us? For _Earth?_ And _if_ it worked as advertised, it would be wonderful, but you know Rodney. There are times when he has to be protected from himself."

There are no words to describe the look Iohannes gives her. It's part _tell me something I don't know_ and a little bit of _when I said Father had a conscious, I meant me_ and a good deal of _no guts, no glory_, but it's also frustration and resignation and a touch of righteous indignation for his _amator_, because Rodney would not be asking for this if he isn't a hundred percent sure, or, at least, as sure as it was possible to be in a situation like this. He knows she has every right to be leery, but this isn't like Attero. The only risk to anyone is themselves.

"I can do that. Just give us the chance."

* * *

><p>They go to Doranda once more and inject some nanoids they've taken from Iohannes' blood into the computers there. It takes a while for them colonize the systems entirely, so they go back up to the jumper to wait, partly because it's more comfortable there, but mostly because the outpost still feels like a crypt.<p>

"Oh, I've been meaning to tell you," Iohannes tells him, lying on the floor of the jumper's back compartment he can feel the nanoids in the outpost activating, and it's giving him a headache, all the disconnected pieces of information revealing themselves one by one. They've the lights out too, though there's some spilling from Rodney's tablet, where he's monitoring the situation as best he can from his spot on one of the benches. "Your sister emailed me the other day. She wants to know how much she can spend on a Christmas present for Madison."

Rodney almost jumps in surprise. "What? Why would she be asking _us_ that?"

"'Cause we can't exactly send her something from Pegasus now can we?" He frowns at the ceiling. He doesn't care for the religious connotations of the Terran holiday, but he's not going to take that out on Madison. If the Terran thing to do is to give her presents, well, who is he to deny her? He'd give her the moon, any moon she wanted, if only she told him which one.

"Er, no, I guess not. So why did Jeannie email _you_ about this?"

"We've been emailing." Sporadically, of course, as the data packets that came through the _pons astris_ from Terra allowed. It's interesting, hearing about all the normal, average Terran things Jeannie and Madison and Kaleb get up to. And seeing Madison grow up through pictures? It's almost enough to satisfy Atlantis' desire to have children running through her halls again.

"Why?"

"'Cause she's your sister and goodness knows you won't."

"Why should I?"

Wincing a little as several nanoids activate at once, "'_Cause she's your sister_," he repeats.

"So?"

"It's what families do."

"So you consider my sister family?"

If Iohannes could sit up, he'd do so, but he can't and settles for frowning more deeply at the jumper's ceiling. "Shouldn't I?"

"I didn't say that. I'm just surprised, that's all. Don't know why. You consider anyone with an active ATA gene family."

Iohannes tries to shrug, only to discover the movement doesn't quite work so well while sprawled out on the floor. "Anyway, it's a Terran thing, so I figured you'd know."

"What do I know about three-year-old girls?"

"She's almost four."

"Same difference."

"So I should ask Carson." Carson has nieces. Four of them. He'd know what constitutes a proper Christmas gift for an almost four-year-old Terran girl, or so Iohannes hopes. The next data-burst to Terra is the day after tomorrow, for the benefit of those on the Expedition who value this curious Terran holiday, and time is running out.

"Probably a good idea. The connection up and running yet?"

"Almost. You should probably start getting everything set up."

"I can do it from here, if you want. Right now you don't look like you could walk ten feet, let alone make it down that ladder."

He'd argue the point, but it's kinda true.

Rodney takes his time setting up the computers and getting the trial ready, letting Iohannes' connection with the outpost stabilize. It's a strange feeling – like trying to make conversation with a particularly intelligent pet rather than an actual person. Or _i__ntellegentia__ artificialis_. Still, the connection's there, and there's no reason why it shouldn't work.

But it doesn't. He knows that the moment the weapon starts to overload and none of his increasingly desperate orders to abort can be carried out by the computer.

It's the last thing Iohannes knows for a long time.


End file.
